Page 1. The first arrivals

Early contact

The earliest recorded Polish contact with New Zealand goes
back to Captain James Cook’s second voyage in 1772. On board
the Resolution were two scientists, Johann Reinhold
Forster and his son Georg, from Danzig (now Gdańsk). They
were of Scottish descent and German speaking, but were Polish
subjects by birth.

Nearly a century later, a number of Poles came to New
Zealand in search of gold. Few of these early arrivals
settled, and many moved between Australia and New
Zealand.

19th-century settlement

Settlement of Poles in New Zealand began in the 1840s,
although the numbers through the 19th century were small –
estimates range from fewer than 500 to over 1,000. Early
immigrants settled as individuals or single families who had
little contact with other Poles.

A first family

The Subritzky family claim to be New Zealand’s first
Polish settlers. Matriarch Sophie Subritzky arrived in 1843
with her extended family, and they settled for a time with
German immigrants at St Paulidorf in the Moutere valley,
near Nelson. Later they moved to Australia, then returned
to settle in Northland, where they intermarried with Māori
tribes. In 1993, to mark the 150th anniversary of the
family’s arrival, 3,000 descendants gathered at the
original homestead at Houhora.

Who were the Poles?

Difficulties in determining how many Poles came to New
Zealand in the 19th century arise from the division of Poland
between 1772 and 1795 by Prussia (a German state) and the
Russian and Austrian empires. Poland did not exist as an
independent state again until after the First World War.
There were almost certainly Poles among those recorded in
censuses or on ships’ registers as Russian, German or
Austrian. A number of immigrants from Poland were Jewish, but
despite their ethnic and religious differences from Poles,
some had feelings of loyalty to Poland.

Vogel scheme immigrants

In the later 19th century, life became increasingly hard
in the Prussian and Russian parts of Poland. Forced
‘Germanisation’ and ‘Russianisation’ provoked a Polish
national consciousness. There was a mass exodus of Poles
after the failed uprising of 1863; most went to other parts
of Europe or America, but a small number came to New Zealand.
These immigrants were often identified as Germans, as they
were frequently German speaking and came from
Prussian-dominated (western) Poland.

When more Polish families arrived in the 1870s, often
travelling together in the same immigrant ship, they settled
in groups. During this period Poles took advantage of New
Zealand Prime Minister Julius Vogel’s offer of assisted
passages, to encourage agricultural labourers and others to
come to New Zealand.

Writing about Oceania

The first description of New Zealand written in Polish,
including translations of Māori songs, was by a
19th-century adventurer, Sygurd Wiśniowski. He visited New
Zealand in 1864. The publisher Dennis McEldowney described
his novel, Children of the Queen of Oceania
(Dzieci królowej Oceanii), published in 1877, as far better
than any novel about New Zealand written in English as
early as this.

The rural settlements

Group migration in the Vogel years was followed by chain
migration, by which others came out to join relatives and
friends. Small Polish settlements developed in the South
Island at Marshlands near Christchurch, and at Allanton and
Waihola on Otago’s Taieri Plain. In the North Island the
largest settlement was in Taranaki, around Inglewood and
Midhurst. There were smaller settlements at Halcombe in the
Manawatū, in the Wairarapa, and in Rangitīkei.

Many of these early pioneers worked in occupations
requiring little English, felling bush, draining swamps and
building tracks. Eventually acquiring their own land, they
turned to farming.